


Blood run from my veins

by ASheepsLife



Series: Losers Bingo 19/20 [1]
Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: (but we got there in the end), (the boys were being unreasonably stubborn on that front though), Getting Together, I gave Jensen wings and then made him angst about it, M/M, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wing AU, a lot of scientific research was disregarded in the making of this fic, no beta reading we die like mne, shameless overuse of parentheses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21653536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASheepsLife/pseuds/ASheepsLife
Summary: Every evening when he left Cougar at the hospital it was all he could do to drag himself back to their hideout, where he would disappear onto the roof, ideally before Pooch could intercept and force dinner into him. Up there, he could have his nightly breakdown in peace, away from concerned eyes that knew way too much about him. By the time the cold finally drove him back inside, the tiles around him were littered with the shredded evidence of his self-recrimination.Cougar gets hurt on a mission, and Jensen doesn't deal with the guilt very well.
Relationships: Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez/Jake Jensen
Series: Losers Bingo 19/20 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561063
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70
Collections: Losers Bingo 2019/20





	Blood run from my veins

**Author's Note:**

> Behold, my kick-off for the Losers Bingo. Still hecking excited that we're doing this. Fill for the unhealthy coping mechanisms square.
> 
> Trigger warning for descriptions of self-harm.
> 
> Title from Mumford & Sons' "Ghosts That We Knew".

“You need to quit beating yourself up about this. He’s going to be all right.”

Cougar didn’t look all right. Lying too still in the hospital bed, his pallor was a pale canvas for the bruises spilling across one side of his face from underneath the bandage wrapped around his head. The flimsy excuse of a sheet hid the second bandage on his torso, while the cast on his left forearm was very much visible.

All in all, Jensen wasn’t really inclined to agree with Pooch’s assessment.

Evidently sensing this, Pooch abandoned his position in the door with a sigh and moved further into the room. He braced himself on Cougar’s footboard, and though Jensen could feel his concerned gaze he thankfully kept his distance from the chair Jensen was slumped on.

“Seriously, man, it’s not your fault –”

Jensen couldn’t contain his scorn.

“Look, can we not with the platitudes, this time?” He closed his eyes briefly, hoping Pooch would give it a rest. He couldn’t take anyone trying to console him, not with Cougar lying there, still as death. “I know what you’re trying to do, but if I’d been faster -”

“It’s thanks to your speed that you got him out,” Pooch interrupted. “All right? _You_ got him out.”

Gaze caught once again on the marks of his failure marring Cougar’s face, Jensen couldn’t ward off the images of Cougar’s fall, replaying over and over in front of his eyes.

“I should’ve caught him.”

He hadn’t really meant to say it out loud, certain it would prompt another round of ‘stop blaming yourself, it comes with the territory’ from Pooch. Pooch, however, apparently conceded the futility of his efforts and changed tack.

“You got a bunch of your feathers messed up at the back,” he said, tone a careful neutral that had Jensen gritting his teeth. He hated the kid gloves. “Want me to sort you out?”

“No,” Jensen bit out, suppressing a shudder at the thought of someone touching his feathers. Then, realizing that had come out harsher than Pooch deserved, he made a conscious effort to unclench. “Thanks. I’ll take care of it later.”

It wasn’t that Pooch had never tended to the odd feather that needed grooming in the past. It was a show of trust and an exercise in bonding fairly common amongst family groups (though – with the exception of his sister – not so much in Jensen’s family of origin) and entirely unheard of in the military. The Losers were a little unconventional in that regard, what fucking else was new. When Jensen had joined them, Cougar was soon established as the one who did the grooming. The rest of the Losers had accepted it as part of the package deal their two team mates had become in every other respect as well, after minor ribbing about obvious infatuations – entirely uncalled-for. At least at first.

Jensen could count the number of times Pooch had stepped in on one hand, but they existed (once Jensen had assured him that, no, it wouldn’t be the equivalent of cheating on Jolene; grooming was intimate, but not that kind of intimate – not necessarily – and also, who did Pooch take him for). Clay would probably break out in hives if Jensen ever offered him that level of intimacy. As for Roque – just, no.

Usually, however, it was Cougar who looked after his feathers. Cougar in whose gentle hands and attentive care Jensen basked with illicit pleasure. Cougar, who was lying bruised and battered because Jensen and his fucking wings failed him.

He didn’t think he could stand anyone touching them with gentle hands at that moment.

“All right,” Pooch said, pushing off the bed and straightening up. “Let’s see if the Pooch can’t scrounge us up something edible in this place.” He headed towards the door, grumbling to himself all the while. “I’ll radio for supplies if I have to. Goddamn hospital food.”

In the quiet that followed his departure, Jensen had even less hope of keeping the memories of their disastrous last mission at bay. The search-and-destroy, so simple on paper (God, why was it always the simple ones), that, thanks to a series of unfortunate events, ended with Cougar engaged in hand-to-hand with one of their adversaries. The unlucky kick that sent Cougar stumbling over the edge of the roof and off the cliff the baddie du jour had built his evil lair on top of. The sickening swoop of Jensen’s stomach that had nothing to do with him abandoning his plan of drop-kicking the guy right in the fucking head in favor of a hot pursuit, and everything with watching Cougar disappear over the ledge.

Jensen realized he was running his hand along his wing, a nervous habit of his. There were a couple of secondaries bent out of shape along the lower edge. One had had its tip broken off. He fingered the sharp break.

Even now he could feel his skin breaking out in a cold sweat at seeing Cougar falling out of sight, at reaching the cliff just in time to witness him hit a desiccated tree clinging onto the rock face that split his forehead and tore open his side. Fast enough to witness but too slow to prevent.

Jensen barely registered the stab of pain as the broken feather cut into his finger. Barely noticed the sudden slickness that made it difficult to get a tight hold of the shaft.

He’d been too slow, too, to catch Cougar before he reached the river, to prevent him from hitting the water, unforgiving at that high a fall, hard enough to break his both his ulna and his radius.

With a vicious tug, Jensen yanked out the damaged feather.

Yeah, he’d managed to pull Cougar’s unconscious form from the river before he could drown. Big fucking whoop. The only reason Cougar’d survived at all was because he’d landed in water. Without that happenstance, Jensen would’ve had to watch Cougar shatter against solid ground. So much for the perks of having wings. Why give Jensen the fucking things if he was useless even with them.

There was another feather lying oddly, bent out of its proper place. Nothing a little tweaking couldn’t fix.

Jensen twisted that one out as well.

He toyed with it, eyes tracing the residues of dried blood in Cougar’s hair that had been missed in the rushed clean-up done to tend to his wounds. Cougar hated the feeling of his hair being matted with anything, and blood was probably fairly high up on the list of undesirable shit to have in there. Maybe Jensen could clean it up properly. Help Cougar feel a little less gross when he woke up.

Or get someone else to do it. Could be Cougar wouldn’t appreciate Jensen mucking with his hair. That was a privilege Jensen had enjoyed once when Cougar had injured his arm and had to go without use of it for a few weeks. Jensen suspected Cougar had asked at least partly in reciprocation for his fairly regularly looking after Jensen’s wings. Maybe it was just due to being on the other end of proceedings for once, but the intimacy had been almost unbearable for Jensen. Or, well, not so much the intimacy as the fact that Jensen wanted it so much it scared him a little. In any case, he figured he’d forfeited his right to it by putting Cougar in hospital.

Another sharp prick on his finger alerted Jensen to the fact that he’d plucked apart the feather in his hands, the fine barbs strewn on the floor around his feet and the stripped quill snapped in half. The pieces were smeared with blood, and the cut on his finger was still bleeding sluggishly. Jensen watched a drop well up and slowly crawl down his skin. Closing his fist around the fragments before it could drip to the floor, he leaned against the chair’s backrest, the rumpled feathers Pooch had mentioned an uncomfortable pressure at his back.

His gaze caught on Cougar’s hand, the slender fingers oddly delicate where they were peeking out of the cast, and he had to fight the sudden urge to wrap his own around them. Dropping the splintered shaft into his lap, he reached for the next feather instead.

***

Cougar woke up. Of course he woke up. And he would be fine, in time. It’d take more than a broken arm, a little blood loss, and a concussion to best him. (It helped that he was able to receive proper medical treatment in an actual hospital this time, since he’d managed to avoid getting shot, stabbed, or otherwise suspiciously injured, meaning that they hadn’t even had to lie when they told the emergency staff that Cougar’d taken a tumble off a cliff.)

That didn’t mean Jensen didn’t feel like shit every time he looked at Cougar with his injuries and his unnaturally pale skin. The guilt ate at him, twisting his stomach and itching under his skin until he had to clench his hands into tight fists to stop them from involuntarily drifting to his feathers.

Not that he outwardly showed any of that.

He was there all day every day, and every evening when he left Cougar at the hospital it was all he could do to drag himself back to their hideout, where he would disappear onto the roof, ideally before anyone could intercept and force dinner into him. Up there, he could have his nightly breakdown in peace, away from concerned eyes that knew way too much about him. By the time the cold finally drove him back inside, the tiles around him were littered with the shredded evidence of his self-recrimination.

***

Jensen had never prided himself in his wings.

From an early age the only thing they ever did was make him conspicuous, visible, different. In his parents’ eyes they were an inconvenience, nothing that would merit special treatment, so they wouldn’t’ve allowed him to go to an all-winged school even if they’d been able to afford it. His quick mouth, enthusiastic geekiness, and perpetual state of gawky awkwardness already painted a target on his back in a school where the only other kid with wings was Naomi Spinoza, who was way too cool to let anything touch her and who decked Mike “Mix” Johansson when he _did_ try to touch her without her permission. (Jensen might’ve been a little bit in love.) Since you couldn’t exactly fly under the radar (hah-fucking-hah) with a hulking big pair of wings, Jensen did the opposite. He became even quicker, louder, more noticeable.

It worked for him.

It worked well enough that that’s what he did in the army as well. There were winged squadrons, of course, nicknamed Wings of Justice or Hell’s Angels or some other dumb shit and all of them replete with guys sporting superiority complexes as big as their egos, strutting around more topless than not like people might forget they had wings if they kept their shirts on for more than five minutes. (Although there was an all-women’s squad called the Valkyries which, he had to admit, was pretty bad-ass.) Jensen in that kind of a scene was a disaster waiting to happen, and so, since he’d always had a thing for computers (and _not_ in an inappropriate way, whatever Pooch might imply on the regular; who _didn’t_ sweet-talk their precious babies now and then?), he’d opted to specialize in tech.

Jensen had always made sure that the things he excelled at didn’t depend on his wings.

(Not that they never came in handy. The feathers meant he never went anywhere unarmed; they might’ve been brittle but, when wielded with sufficient expertise, they could be used with deadly results. Jensen’s expertise was more than sufficient.)

So, he’d spent most of his time around people that weren’t like him, that didn’t like him, that called him “angel” and “cupid” with a sneer directed toward his pristine white feathers. And it was fine. Nothing he couldn’t handle.

***

Jensen took to tying his wings down.

“More convenient that way,” he shrugged when Cougar gave them a _look_. “Wouldn’t want to get in the way of the nice doctors doing their best to fix you back up.”

It was also convenient because it made any nascent bald patches practically unnoticeable.

It wasn’t like the others didn’t have any precedent, either. Jensen tied his wings down plenty on missions and in day-to-day life; having wings was a rare enough condition that most things weren’t designed with them in mind. On those occasions it was only ever for a few hours at a time, however; any longer, and things got seriously uncomfortable.

After hour six, Jensen was carrying a dull, bone-deep ache that he chose not to think about too metaphorically.

***

It didn’t take long for Cougar to get out of the hospital. Since his release was on the early side of medically advised (the Losers, as a whole, weren’t particularly fond of hospitals, even if the number of their stays might give a different impression), he was still not back to his usual chirpy self, sleeping a lot and watching amounts of daytime TV that couldn’t possibly be beneficial to his health. (Jensen privately suspected he was using his convalescence as an excuse to catch up on his telenovelas.)

That was probably why it was two whole days before he climbed onto the roof after Jensen.

“Take it from an expert in making dumbass decisions: Should you really be scaling buildings in your current state?” Jensen asked from his position at the edge, legs dangling off the side.

Cougar didn’t deign to answer, hoisting himself through the skylight onto the roof with a grace that Jensen couldn’t even dream of if he were in that kind of a condition.

Once Jensen was sure Cougar wasn’t going to go ass over teakettle and hurt himself even more, he turned his eyes front again, trying to steel himself for the conversation they were no doubt about to have. No way had Cougar missed him beating himself up about what had happened.

Cougar made his way over and lowered himself down carefully next to Jensen, all in silence. Jensen was trying to kick his bullshitting reflex into gear, because that was his defense against Cougar’s “wait Jensen out because he’s unable to not fill the silence” strategy, when Cougar reached out and picked something up from beside him. Looking over, Jensen saw it was one of his feathers. Now that he _was_ looking, he found there were a number of them scattered around him. Crap. He hadn’t realized he’d been doing it. At least he hadn’t mutilated them this time.

Not meeting Cougar’s eyes, Jensen started in on damage control.

“Happens sometimes. Increased stress levels over an extended period of time can lead to abnormal occurrences of molting in – ”

He broke off when Cougar shifted to reach into his pocket with his good hand and pull out a handful of feathers that _had_ been severely disintegrated.

Well, shit.

Where had he even found those? Had Jensen gotten careless at the hospital? Or had it been earlier on, when he’d gone into their room to check on Cougar and found him napping and himself unable to leave, sitting instead on his own bed and watching Cougar sleep like a total creep?

Evidently satisfied that he’d made his point, Cougar tipped his hand and allowed the remains to be carried off into the gathering dusk.

“You really shouldn’t have done that, you know,” Jensen remarked as they watched the pieces scatter. “You’re never gonna get that shit out of your pants.”

Cougar’s gaze shifted to him and Jensen’s fingers started to prickle. He reached for one of the feathers strewn around himself. Cat was out of the bag now, anyway. Cougar didn’t say anything, watching him methodically strip the feather, and Jensen couldn’t help the way his movements got choppier the longer he did so. Was that what he wanted, a demonstration of just how messed up Jensen was? His own private show? _Welcome to Jensen’s Fucked-up Mind_?

“Why?”

When Cougar’s quiet question came, Jensen felt just pissed off enough to bolster his bluff out of the entire conversation. That was of course before he turned towards Cougar in unrighteous indignation and saw the worry, the _pain_ , etched into his face. There was no judgement, no disgust. That, Jensen could’ve dealt with. That, he had practice brushing off. What fucked him up, routinely, was how much Cougar _cared_.

He deflated, unable to stop his gaze from dropping to the cast on Cougar’s arm before he turned back toward the rooftops, shoulders slumping.

The ‘it’s not your fault’ didn’t come. Of course it didn’t. Cougar knew better than anyone that it did jack shit to assuage the guilt. But maybe Cougar would assume that was what this whole thing was about and let Jensen off easy.

“You hate them.”

Or maybe not. Jensen should have known there’d be no avoiding this. Cougar had him dead to rights.

For a second, Jensen debated bullshitting anyway. Ah hell, who was he kidding?

Letting out a defeated breath, Jensen cast about for a place to start.

“Everybody seems to expect me to love them. As if literally everything wouldn’t be easier without them. Fucking annoying, is what they are. Have you ever been through a molt? Absolute pain in the ass. Would not recommend.”

At his side, Cougar kept his patient silence. That was a constant that wouldn’t ever change, right? Even if he knew about all of Jensen’s messed-up hang-ups, Cougar wouldn’t run screaming in the other direction. Well, no, because Cougar would never run anywhere screaming. But he also wouldn’t do the dignified, silent and mysterious Cougar-version of it, either. No matter what, Jensen would have Cougar by his side. Right?

(That was, of course, without mentioning the Other Thing Jensen was keeping from Cougar. But while Cougar might be willing to deal with Jensen’s screwy head, his screwy heart was another matter entirely. He didn’t want to know how it would cope with having its foolish hopes dashed.)

Speaking of, his heart did a weird lurching thing when he saw Cougar pick up one of his feathers, possibly inspired by all the molting talk. God, he really needed to get it together.

“Could’ve at least picked someone who knows what to do with them,” Jensen went on. “Or wants them. Of course, I can’t say anything about it because then I’m the ungrateful asshole who doesn’t appreciate his wings. I mean, who wouldn’t want some if given the choice? Figures I couldn’t be fucking normal for once.”

Jensen couldn’t vouch for whatever came out of his mouth any more, and he blamed it entirely on the gentle way Cougar was running his thumb along the springy barbs of Jensen’s feather. He had to suppress a shiver. The touch felt strangely intimate, for all that the thing was no longer attached to Jensen’s body. Did phantom limb also apply to feathers?

“There’s gotta be a reason why I’ve got them, right?” Although he could hear how small his voice had become, Jensen found himself unable to do anything about it, gaze stuck on Cougar’s careful movement. “I should be able to do things others can’t, be able to do _more_. Otherwise, why bother?” A derisive breath escaped through his nose. “Fucking things are wasted on me. I’d be better off without them.”

Jensen nearly swallowed his tongue when Cougar suddenly reached over and placed his good hand over Jensen’s. Which were clenched tight on a bare shaft. Cougar had intervened before he could break it apart and cut himself on the pieces.

Blinking dumbly at their hands, Jensen tried to think beyond the rough warmth that had eclipsed everything else when Cougar spoke, his voice just as warm and rough as his hand.

“You’re only human, angelito.”

Shocked into looking at Cougar, Jensen found that incomprehensible warmth reflected in Cougar’s face, too. How was it so all-encompassing, radiating everywhere? Even the tips of Jensen’s ears started to burn as he blinked dumbly at Cougar’s face.

“May I?” Cougar asked, flicking his eyes to Jensen’s back.

“Yeah,” Jensen croaked voicelessly. He didn’t actually know what Cougar was asking, but it honestly didn’t really matter. He would’ve agreed to just about anything at that point.

Reaching behind Jensen, Cougar tugged on the release for the rope holding his wings. Since Jensen had tied it so he’d be able to undo it himself without hassle, the rope came away easily. Jensen was unable to contain a wince as the stiff limbs moved out of the position they’d been in for so long. Gripping the edge of the roof, Jensen shifted his wings a little to get the circulation going, acutely aware of Cougar’s attention on what had to be a pretty battered sight.

He knew Cougar liked his wings well enough, and yeah, he could see how they might be considered something to look at; powerful and sleek, and improbably white in color – when they weren’t half-plucked and rumpled to all hell, anyway. Needless to say, Jensen wasn’t exactly keen on flaunting the issues _he_ had with them in front of Cougar.

“Show me?”

A quick glance told Jensen that Cougar’s eyes were still trained on his wings.

“It ain’t gonna be pretty,” he not-really-joked, picking up the feather Cougar had dropped and turning it in his hands.

Cougar said nothing.

With a sigh, Jensen closed his eyes to the inevitable and unfolded his wings.

And barely managed to hold back a groan of relief. God, it felt fucking fantastic to stretch the damn things. The sudden urge to fly surprised him, the urge to take to the skies, feel his wings work to carry him. He opened his eyes, watching his own thumb describe the same movement Cougar’s had along the length of the feather.

When there was no reaction from Cougar, Jensen turned towards him. Cougar was looking the other way, head turned to take in the full extent of Jensen’s wing span. He looked so damn good against the backdrop of white feathers, all Jensen wanted to do was fold his wing around him, tuck him close in an unparalleled display of proprietary mushiness. He also maybe wanted to lick the hollow of skin exposed underneath the juncture of that sharp jawline.

Then Cougar turned back to him and Jensen hoped that thought wasn’t as prominent on his face as it felt in his head. Cougar didn’t show any indication that he was aware of any lechery toward his person.

“Let me take care of them. Of you,” he said instead, quiet and earnest like he didn’t think that would leave Jensen floundering again. Was this what happened when he left the talking to Cougar? He just kept coming out with all this life-changing shit like it was nothing?

Jensen struggled to find a response; a follow-up question perhaps, maybe a “would you be so kind as to elaborate on that”.

“Why?”

Ok, so that was a little more pathetic than he’d been aiming for.

Cougar’s face did a complicated twitch, and then he brought the rough warmth of his palm up to rest against the side of Jensen’s face.

Heart leaping in his throat, Jensen moved into the touch. And then, Cougar was leaning in, closing the distance, and giving Jensen the softest damn kiss of his entire life.

It was over before Jensen could do much more than try and remember to breathe over the feeling of those lips pressing against his. Although Cougar only pulled away so far as to allow their foreheads to rest together, and just when had Jensen closed his eyes?

“That’s why,” Cougar whispered, thumb tracing over Jensen’s cheek.

Jensen felt…he didn’t rightly know _what_ he was feeling, but there was a lot of it.

“You sure you know what you’re signing up for?” he asked, voice not any louder than Cougar’s and considerably rougher.

Cougar did pull back further then, and Jensen opened his eyes to receive what was very definitely a Look.

“I do.”

“OK,” Jensen replied, willing himself to accept it without trying to talk either of them out of it. “‘Cause you know I’m kind of a hot mess right now. Have been for quite a while. A long while.” He ducked his head away, dislodging Cougar’s hand, and took to twisting the feather in his hands again. “And I know a fault confessed is half-redressed and everything, but…”

“No magic cure,” Cougar put in.

“Right.”

No cure at all, really. Just learning to live with it.

“Will you allow me to help?”

When Jensen couldn’t bring himself to answer, Cougar went on with that quiet intensity of his.

“You hurt, I hurt.”

Jensen scoffed quietly.

“Yeah, well. Ditto.”

“So no more getting hurt,” Cougar said, and Jensen could _hear_ the corner of his mouth twitch. His next words, however, squeezed at Jensen’s heart.

“And no hurting ourselves.”

Exhaling heavily, Jensen dropped the feather and lifted his right hand, pinkie extended.

Even without turning his head he felt Cougar give him another look. Then he hooked the pinkie of his good hand around Jensen’s.

Jensen’s heart felt strangely light as he guided their linked hands down to the rooftop.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Cougar reminded him after a moment’s silence.

Jensen pursed his lips.

“Under one condition,” he said, turning his head to meet Cougar’s expectant expression.

“You let me help you with that,” he nodded at the cast on Cougar’s arm.

An bolt of unexpected heat shot through Jensen when Cougar raised a suggestive eyebrow.

“I was going to offer my expert hair-washing skills again, but your thing is also very much on the table.”

Shooting Jensen a smirk, Cougar leaned in.

“Gracias a Dios,” he murmured against Jensen’s lips, a split second before Jensen, a little more proactively than the last time, met him for a kiss.


End file.
